The Bluetailed Chatteraven

The blue-tailed chatteraven is a morphologically primitive sparrowgull descended from the magpie-like white-margined chatterer, (notable for being the pet and companion of the last woodcrafter), which itself was distantly evolved from the babbling jays of the Pangeacene. Among extant birds, the chatterraven is one of the least changed from the ancestral canary of any left on Serina. Primitive even for a sparrowgull, it is instantly recognizable as not only a bird but a passerine, and besides color differences is easily distinguished physically from its earthly-analogue, a raven, only in having one less toe per foot, and a small featherless pad on the wrist used to hold and carry its eggs and nestlings (these are both defining traits among sparrowgulls.)

Life on Serinarcta during the peak of the glacial maximum and pushed to the edge of the habitable world where the food supply is never predictable has made the bluetails super aggressive and bold. They are omnivorous and will eat a wide range of food, taking whatever they can get a hold of but eating more meat than plant food, and it is acquired in the easiest ways possible, which includes stealing from rivals. Bluetails are highly social and rely on tight cooperation in small family units for survival, yet are very territorial and vicious to outsiders. Competition within their species is significant, as they are quite literally their own worst enemy - no other creature is quite as well suited to learn how to steal and take your food than others with a brain just like yours. Stealing is dangerous, as if you are caught, you will be killed. But when food is scarce, such possibilities are merely equations to factor into everyday decisions.

The general structure of the bluetail social group is a clan formed by one dominant breeding pair, and a variety of lower-ranking helpers which care for their young and do not reproduce. Reproduction is dependent on multiple adults to scour the land for enough food to raise just one brood of chicks per year, and pairs without at least one additional adult to aid them will not even attempt to nest. These helpers are most often older offspring of the dominant pair, but clan structure is highly varied and may include siblings of the dominant couple or even unrelated adults which have integrated from outside groups, often bearing scars from violent initiation rituals, and starting at the bottom of the hierarchy. Though joining an established clan as an adult is difficult and such outliers are often victimized by the rest of the group for a long time, it is still a better life than to try and survive here alone. Bluetail juveniles may stay with their families for as long as three years in normal conditions before dispersing, where they seek to meet other juveniles and pair off to form their own clans. This is where mortality is highest in the species, and as few as one in ten may succeed. Some helpers prioritize their own longterm survival over reproductive urges and spend much longer as helpers, and such longterm aids may eventually rise through the ranks and inherit the clan when their same-sex parent or otherwise dominant individual dies; many however may never breed at all.

Bluetails are a near-sophont species, and so are extremely smart. They have a complex language of varied calls and chirps that includes nouns, adjectives, and verbs. They name their offspring, and may nickname other adults, and they are capable of both using and creating tools. Bluetails also have a strong self of self-awareness as well as the ability to understand the intent of another individual and recognize that its experience may not be the same as their own. Their capacity for empathy, however, is limited to partners, relatives or adopted clan members yet can be shockingly absent against perceived rivals. Further, they are animalistic in that they have poor control over their impulses and so are quick to anger, acting before thinking. Bluetail tempers have a hair-trigger, and can switch from docile to violent in a second if they feel slighted or threatened. Clans regularly war with one another over territory and resources, killing each other with both their sharp beaks and with tools such as heavy rocks. Bluetails are nonetheless capable of thinking ahead and long-term planning, and may plot an assassin for weeks to set up a rival into a trap. Almost anything goes against non-family in bluetail society, as a rival killed off means that much more food that can go to their clan instead. Unmated males may also form coalitions to violently take-over other clans and kill their dominant male, with the strongest of them taking its place. Working together to overthrow a common enemy is effective for some male bluetails, but such resulting clans with several adult males all then vying for dominance are often unstable and prone to later collapse from in-fighting. In addition to rival clans, bluetails are often hostile to individuals that look different from themselves. As most bluetails are virtually identically marked, even small aberrations in pattern are likely to function as a “kick-me” sign and result in more bullying by others even in the same clan. Albino mutants, though rare, are treated with the worst disdain and usually killed before weaning, if they are fed as nestlings at all, because they stand out so starkly and are more likely to attract predators. Melanistic individuals, all dark and lacking the white highlights of the normal adult, with dark cobalt tails, are an exception. Perhaps because there are genuine advantages to a solid dark coat in a cold climate, such as better retaining heat and the additional strength melanin adds to the wing feathers, black bluetails - a misnomer - may be favored by their caretakers and so grow especially large. They are likely to rise high in hierarchy and so become breeders themselves, perpetuating their traits. Melanism is a recessive trait and so should be rare, but is so successful that up to 20% of bluetails exhibit it.

Bluetails are not sophonts, and lack personhood. They are very intelligent animals, and yet clearly still animals that live lives determined strongly by the directions that instinctive impulses dictate. Bluetails evolved to be aggressive and to fight, to live in hierarchies based on dominance and submission, and to cooperatively breed in clans, and though they vary in their pursuit of these goals slightly they all abide by them. Bluetails also lack a creative ability - they don’t have concepts of abstract ideas and do not make art. If it is not something they can see, and ideally something they can eat, bluetails have no interest in it. Despite being logical thinkers, however, bluetails can be superstitious. Intelligent brains like theirs are primed to identify patterns, and so can be fooled by coincidences. As they communicate with one another, ideas are passed between individuals and through populations. In the current time period, bluetails have developed a widespread culture of strange rituals intended to ensure successful food gathering that may include chanting or even spinning around a certain number of times before foraging. They often take the tailfeathers of slain rivals and hold on to them as talismans when out foraging or going to fight, believing them to provide good luck and protection against being killed themselves. Such behaviors may be precursors to religion.

"Brighteye", the sophont chatterraven, and his non-sophont sibling - two significant outliers - ironically represent their entire species in this profile because drawing other individuals was low on my to-do list.

~~~

There is one bluetail to which the previous descriptions don’t apply. He doesn’t know why, but he isn’t very much like the rest. He has a better grasp over his instincts - they don’t control his behavior. He thinks more clearly and a lot faster, and he can even think of things that are not real. His name by hatching was Tsor-tsor-tseet, a series of sounds without linguistic meaning like all the rest. But he, alone among an entire species, could understand symbolism. So he gave himself a nickname at a year and a half old - Brighteye. And he was the only one who would know its meaning.

Brighteye is a mutant, and he isn’t the only one in his family, as his young brother is one of the normally rejected albinos. Only through Brighteye’s efforts and foraging skills has his sibling survived to weaning. Both of them are different from the rest. Whitecrown - a descriptive name also given by his brother - clearly looks different. Brighteye looks like everyone else, but feels different. He has grown up to become like an adult, in a species that never seems to leave their childhood. Not outcast, yet left feeling isolated and alone, Brighteye knows he doesn’t fit in. He doesn’t know why. With a brain unusually dense with synaptic connections, his mind is effectively more efficient than usual while taking up the same space. On top of all species-typical bluetail abilities Brighteye exhibits better problem-solving and increased innovation. He makes more complex tools and solves long-unsolved problems. Yet his unusual brain also gives him harder to quantify things too. An inherent capacity for understanding others, and empathy that transcends the clan boundaries. Creativity and imagination. Self-reflection… and the ability to think about his own mind. Driven not by instinct or instruction to survive but by his own thought-out choices and constructing a moral compass from a place among a species where it didn’t exist before, Brighteye has gained personhood. He is a genetic throwback, having regained the spark of one of his kind’s ancestral species that lost its dreams 30 million years ago. The last fork-tailed babbling jay’s bright mind, contributed genetically to its related non-sophont species before its extinction and lain dormant for countless generations, now soars again on new wings once more. But its time here is finite, as no new species will arise.

Brighteye is the only bluetail person, the first and the last.

He doesn't know his history or his importance to his ancestors. He hasn't yet learned his significance to far away people unknown to him, who will know him before he knows them. But in the brief time a single life gets upon it, he will guide change to their precarious world, an influence that will carry on long after he is gone.